The Fireflower Blooms at Night
by DoYouKnowWhatStarsAre
Summary: They were not wholly evil when they were born. They were not utterly good, either. Just as every one of us, they carried light and dark within them. And like us, it was their society that broke and reshaped them. Possible two-shot look at Alec and Jane's human life.


**A/N: Hello, everyone! This is the first story that I've written that doesn't focus primarily on an OC. Alec and Jane have been by far two of my favorite characters in the Twilight series. It would mean so, so much to me if you left a little review to let me know what you think! Thanks, so much! **

Truthfully, when we were both very young, Alec and I, our lives were perfectly wonderful. Our mother doted on us, our father beamed about our accomplishments during meetings of the Town Elders. Family friends, our relatives, many Aunts and Uncles and cousins would come to play with us. Our land was decently sized- big enough to comfortably host a moderately sized gathering.

We had a garden, a milk cow, some pigs and two horses that, as I grew older, became my pride and joy. If we wanted something, it grew, regardless of the harshness of the weather or the season during which we desired it. In the dead of winter, we'd find ripe, shocking red summer strawberries ready to be made into jam or pies or just eaten straight from the bush if we preferred. It felt magical, almost. Wish something, and then it would be just within our grasp the very next day! And then, once in a while, if we truly hoped and prayed hard enough, others would receive the gift our wishes called out for. Blizzards would find us peeling melons by the fireplace. We'd make the most peculiar sort of jams from fruits and vegetables that were not meant to grow for many months.

The Autumn that the two of us turned six years old was the first time I remember any dislike towards us. We sat in the garden, half filthy from the berries that smeared our faces and the dirt that we rolled around in because it was oh, so hot and we couldn't find any solace in the house. In that time, one had to be quite self aware, lest our parents deem us useless and throw us out.

We giggled, happily and free of any cares, and then, somehow, and to this day, I can't image how this came to be, a tiny bud sprouted right before our very eyes. Strong, and sturdy, we were sure that it would grow to be a raspberry by the end of the season. Those were rare, even for us, though we wished hard for them. I would have squealed with delight, then, but Alec's hand closed around my pudgy arm and he pointed directly in front of us.

A girl stood there, barely two years older than us, but her face held the same shock and contempt that I would see in the adults of our village in a few years.

Red-faced, she raised a finger and shrieked, "Witch! Devil's Spawn! Demon Children! Witch! You're a Witch!"

I didn't know what that meant, then, so what else could I have done but sat back against my brother's knee and look up at her, innocent and wide-eyed.

That sent her away, my indifference. Papa yelled a good bit. Mostly to things or animals that wouldn't work as he liked, but every so often at us, but he was good, papa. He swatted us if we were naughty, but he was good. I wasn't phased by her shrieks, especially when I couldn't understand her insults.

When she was away, and far up the street, I turned to my brother.

"Ali, what's a witch?"

He just shrugged, and like all boys, squished a clump of dirt between his hands. "Don't know. Nothing good. She said it too mean to be anything good."

"Do you think its because of the sprout?"

"I don't know, Janie," He sighed. He was the only boy who never in his life had a problem pronouncing my name.

"But what would a sprout hurt? They come up around town all the time!"

"Why do I care what she thinks?" He huffed and clumsily, pulled himself to his feet. Foolishly, he tried to wipe his hands on his trousers, but that soiled them horribly. Oooh, mama would have a fit when she saw! "You like me, mama likes me, papa likes me some. Who cares about some girl?"

"You will!" I teased, smacking him with the handle of the broom I was supposed to sweep with. Mama wouldn't be pleased with me, either. "When mama sends you off, far, far to marry some girl, you'll have to care about her then."

He scowled at me, dark blue eyes clouded with frustration that he couldn't think of some comeback, but nevertheless, he slipped his hand into mine and together we climbed the steps up to our house.

Mama came home maybe an hour later, but it could have been ten minutes. I had never been good at telling the passing of time properly.

Brightly, she called to us, and we dashed to her, unashamed of how dirty we were. Swiftly, she picked the both of us up, and we clung to the warm, chocolate curls that Alec had inherited. I had gotten my papa's flaxen blonde hair. We looked different from each other, but mama always said that since we were born on the same day, we were twins.

"We missed you, mama." I cried, nuzzling my nose into her neck. She smelled of lavender fields and sweat, but it was the heated, pure sort of smell without the putrid quality of most body odors. Alec copied my motions from the other side, and his fist clenched in the bodice of her gown.

"Don't leave so much mama. We want you to stay here, mama. We want to be with you."

"Oh, sweetheart…sweet baby, you know how much I want to stay, you know I do…" She sighed, and a kiss found it's way to both of our foreheads. "But your papa needs me to help, you see. I have a lot that I must do… feed the cows, mend our clothes, clean the house, collect food to cook dinner. I need to know that you're safe, here."

"But, mama!" I protested. Her excuses didn't please me. I wanted her then, and always, and I didn't like the thought of being abandoned by my own mama every day. Alec was pleasant enough, but he was barely four centimeters taller than I, and it wouldn't be possible for him to scoop me up and cradle me like my mama could whenever I had a nightmare or just a plain rotten day.

A hiss escaped her, "Jane, I've already explained to you why. Do not go an make a fuss about something that you have no control over."

I shook her roughly, tears welled up in my eyes. I hated being told what to do! I hated it! And that made her open her eyes. With a shrill gasp, she drew her hands away from us. Had she been blind the whole time, unaware of our state of uncleanliness?

"Ah, Jane! Get your filthy hands off of my hair!" She didn't even speak to Alec, just wrenched herself away from him so roughly that he would have tumbled face first onto the ground if he hadn't caught himself on the arm of the wooden bench instantly.

On her blouse, there was a child-sized handprint made of mud, which she picked and preened at.

"You've lost your dinner, you have." She snarled. We backed away, thinking that mama was the worst monster we had ever seen at that moment. Shamelessly, she ripped the gown off of her head and turned with her arms draped down her side, casually marching up the steps with her breasts bared.

"You've got three hours to go down to the creek and scrub that gown until it is clean! If there is but one stain left on it, you will both be red for a week."

I wanted to cry. This wasn't like our mama, this was a stranger- a real witch who had come to take our mama's place and replaced her with a nasty and mean old lady.

Alec clung to me now, for he new that he could get me as dirty as he liked; I'd never shove him away like mama had.

Silently, we stumbled with the gown held up between us, down to the creek. It was about half a mile from the house, so it took at least half an hour for us to reach it, and the stains in mama's gown were tough. They would be hard to get out.

But we did cry as we each held the dress up on one rock while the other scrubbed feverishly with another smaller one. At first, we were rather rough, and then we found how delicate the fabric was. It would surely rip if we were not gentle enough with it. It took so much time, and the sun started to set in the distance. Only when the sky had turned from bright blue to pastel pinks and violets, had the stains finally gotten out. We would have to let it dry on the line, of course, but the dress would be as good as new once that was done.

With such caution that we could have been holding an angel baby in between us, we carried it back to our home, and prayed, silently, that our mother would forgive us for soiling her dress. We loved her, we really did, and we couldn't bare it if she didn't love us in return.

Tiptoe, quiet like mice, we crept in through the front door and grabbed the pins for the clothes line from her sewing basket. Then, before the doors could close on us and alert her, we were back outside. It was tall, but on our toes, we managed to barely reach the clothes line. At least it didn't drag the ground, nor did it hang in bunched up wrinkles.

We both let out breathes, relieved that our ordeal was over. Before we went back inside, we thought, best to clean ourselves up before mama came back out. She would only get angry again if we messed up whatever she had put on.

Shameless, we stripped our own clothes and took turns drawing up water from the well and then dumping it over our heads. Chilled to the bone, but absurdly clean in the end, we bolted into the house to find clothes until someone cruel like the girl could see us in such a state us undress.

He pulled on brown trousers with red patches at the knee and a loose fitted cream top. I envied him. Boys could do with so much less to drag them down, while in order to be acceptable, I had to don petticoats and pretty dresses.

One thing that I wished for as a child was a looking-glass of my own. Everyone cherished my hair. Papa called it princess hair, because it fell to my waist in long, thick, golden waves. Mama wanted to cut it to my shoulders, because it would make it easier to handle, but papa nearly smacked her stupid whenever she made the suggestion. He would keep his daughter a princess, and that was all there was to say in the matter.

To my surprise, it was he who came into our room late that night, with a piece of bread in both of his hands.

"Your mother sends these for you," He held out the bread and we ripped it from him, our tiny stomachs grumbling violently. He knelt before us, crouched in front of the rickety old bed that we shared with one another. "She's is dreadfully upset at what she did. You must understand that, both of you. Adults don't act very thoughtfully sometimes, and what she did was very heartless. She loves you both very dearly, and she wishes you to know how grateful she is for how her dress came out."

"Mama doesn't like me," My little brother said, arms wrapped around his thin waist. "She pushed me away. She's yelled before, papa, but she pushed us away. She didn't want either of us."

"Alexander," He said firmly, and Alec immediately perked up to listen. The sound of his full name always brought him to attention. "Your mother adores you both very much, but in her anger, she acted foolishly. She would have come here herself, but she was worried that you would not forgive her as you should."

"And why should we forgive her?" I exploded. Alec's hand found his way to mine again. It eased me, his touch, brought be down from an irrational state of pure hatred into one where my thoughts and words could be controlled. Still, I was furious with our mother, "She shoved Alec to the ground...acted like we were filthy because we hugged her with dirty hands! She's never gotten upset like that before."

Papa looked at my twin, pained and unable to find a way to make me understand. I understood perfectly, but I wouldn't forgive her. I wouldn't forgive for wretched she made me feel.

He shuffled away then, our Papa, his head down and his eyes cast to the shadows on the uneven floorboards. After than, neither of our parents came to us unless it was necessary.

We roamed, alone but together and perfectly content with that fact. If we had one another, we were happy. We understood our quirks and sometimes, we knew the other better than we knew ourselves.

We didn't go much into the village, though. Rumors spread like wildfire. Alec insisted that it would be dangerous for us to go there now, when they all thought us to be witches. They could hurt us, he told me.

It was them who I wanted to hurt for shunning us. Year after year, the crops withered away and died. During our ninth year, the village was in a famine.

Woods became our second home. There we were free- free to frollick and giggle and sing and delight in silly and trivial things that all children adored. There were no stares deep in the confines of trees, no judgment waiting around the corner. Berries were in abundance for us. Somehow, we found plenty while the village starved and the cemeteries were filled.

On a frigid day, two weeks or so shy of our tenth birthdays, we lounged beside a river that ran too fast for the ice to melt it. My hands were half blue. We couldn't afford to have gloves made.

"You're going to freeze to death," He drawled, moving closer and draping his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into the embrace, and rested my head against his chest. Even if I was freezing, the steady beat of his heart calmed my own. "We'll have to go back home, Janie. We can't stay out here all night….like I said, you're about to freeze. We'll pick some berries and bring them back with us, alright?"

I pouted. He was sensible, reasonable and I couldn't argue with him, but I was the oldest. I should have made all of our decisions.

"I don't want to go home!" I hissed, snatching my arm away from him now and, then, I drew my knees up to my chest. "I'd rather die here by ice than by caught dead in that horrid house."

Alec grinned a boyish grin that would have melted a heart turned to stone. He held out his hand, and pulled me unceremoniously to his feet.

"Sorry, Janie. I'm not going to let my twin die out here alone, and especially not without me. We came into this world together, and by God, we are going to leave it together."

We pushed open the door to the house moments later. Immediately, I felt my whole body relax as the heat from the roaring fire in the cast iron stove found its way to every aching and icy pore. Roughly, I rubbed my hands together and dropped before the fire, blowing on them occasionally to help them warm faster.

"You.. you-you've 'en… ver' la...te….." A voice stammered from behind me. I twisted around instantly, and beheld with great shock that it was my father who had spoken. How peculiar, that he didn't sound anything like my father. Something about the way he looked at me was frightening. My cheeks were pink from the wind, and my gown exposed frost bitten shoulders. If my hair ever looked worse, I couldn't recall the time, for it was wild and windblown.

Spring brought many firsts for my brother and I. First blooms of the season, first foals to be born to our horses.

The first time my father raped me.

With the shattering of ice came the shattering of my innocence. He came dead in the night while Alec was sick with a fever and seasonal flu, and took everything from me.

When he was done, he made me kiss him good night- on the lips. The taste lingered in my mouth all night. I wanted to vomit….rip my own skin off….scrub myself until I bled. I was dirty, like mama had said I was. Only filthy and nasty little girls got used like I did.

But I couldn't bring myself to do any of that. Blood trickled down my leg and made the lining of my dressing gown stick to it. Shakily, I pulled it off before it could dry to my skin, and curled into myself.

Seconds later, I stiffened at the feel of arms around my waist. My father. He had come back for me, to do God knows what other vile things to my body. My hands curled into fists, and without looking back, I punched my assailant hard in the groin.

"Ach! Jane! What's the matter with you?!"

That wasn't my father's voice. Timidly, for I was certain that my mind was playing a horrible trick on me, I turned over. He was doubled over onto himself, one hand fisted in the lower half of his shirt.

"I- I'm sorry…" I stuttered. Mama had said to never hit boys there. He nodded stiffly, held up a hand, and silently asked for a moment.

When the pain went away, he wrapped his arms around me as if I hadn't caused him excruciating agony. He didn't seem to notice that I was utterly bare, or the stain of blood on the mattress. If he did, he made no mention of it.

"Jane…" He muttered, drawing me close to him. I sank into his hold, protected and guarded. I may have been born first, but he would forever be my guardian. "You were crying, Janie...you know you never cry, not ever, only when you're very mad…. it's okay, Janie. You can be mad. You have every right to be, you really do, but I'll still love you, no matter how angry you are. I'll be right there."

I clung to the back of his shirt. None of it was fair. I wanted everyone to hurt, to bleed like me, to be shunned and hated and deserted as we had been.

I wanted their pain to be our pleasure.

Half-asleep in the dead of night, with my brother's hand woven through my hair, I vowed silently.

_One day… _


End file.
